You want to open a user account on the Inter­net and are asked for your per­son­al data. The ques­tion is: How can you and the account provider be sure that no one but you will use your iden­ti­ty for this pur­pose? There are ​“iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures” to pro­tect your data and com­bat crim­i­nal activ­i­ties. With their help, you can legal­ly prove your iden­ti­ty. This is impor­tant for any busi­ness rela­tion­ship you want to enter — espe­cial­ly for sen­si­tive trans­ac­tions like mon­ey trans­ac­tions. Wat­ti­fy uses pro­ce­dures that meet the high­est secu­ri­ty stan­dards and make your reg­is­tra­tion in our app fast and con­ve­nient. So it does­n’t feel like you’re going on a blind date. Read more about how Wat­ti­fy ver­i­fies your data, the dif­fer­ent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion meth­ods and why data secu­ri­ty is so cru­cial in the finan­cial sec­tor here.

What is KYC and how does it ensure secure busi­ness con­di­tions in the finan­cial sec­tor?

If a com­pa­ny in the finan­cial sec­tor wants to dis­trib­ute a prod­uct or ser­vice, the law requires it to ver­i­fy the iden­ti­ties of its cus­tomers and clients. KYC is the inter­na­tion­al­ly stan­dard­ized legit­i­ma­tion check for this pur­pose. It stands for ​“Know Your Cus­tomer.” Sell­ers and cus­tomers should know who they are deal­ing with. This pro­tects both sides. With KYC, finan­cial ser­vice providers are able to pre­vent white-col­lar crime. Fraud­sters can­not eas­i­ly open accounts in false names, move sums from A to B via dum­my com­pa­nies and laun­der mon­ey.

Orga­ni­za­tions that pose a threat to soci­ety, such as those involved in ter­ror­ism, can be denied access to finan­cial sources. In addi­tion to iden­ti­ty, the KYC process also ver­i­fies the cus­tomer’s eli­gi­bil­i­ty to con­duct finan­cial trans­ac­tions, checks the rel­e­vant back­ground and clas­si­fies the risk he or she is expect­ed to pose. KYC relies on dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy. This makes ver­i­fi­ca­tion process­es fast, cost-effec­tive and avail­able every­where.

What are the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures for KYC?

The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ce­dures for KYC are tied to the legal require­ments for the finan­cial sec­tor. To ver­i­fy your data, you have sev­er­al options, offline and online. As a rule, these are as fol­lows:

1. Going to the branch

If the finan­cial ser­vice provider has a branch, you can show your doc­u­ments to an employ­ee on site and use them to legit­imize your­self.

2. Video chat

You will be con­nect­ed to an employ­ee via video. You show them your doc­u­ments in front of the cam­era. They are saved as pho­tos for ver­i­fi­ca­tion and for­ward­ed dig­i­tal­ly. This can be done con­ve­nient­ly from home and saves time and paper­work.

3. The online ID func­tion of the ID card

You can acti­vate a func­tion for your ID card (if you haven’t already done so) to iden­ti­fy your­self online with­out going to the author­i­ties or mak­ing a video call. The whole thing is called ​“eID” (elec­tron­ic proof of iden­ti­ty). How to get and use an eID is explained in the next sec­tion.

Posti­dent and eID — this is how ver­i­fi­ca­tion works at Wat­ti­fy

For your reg­is­tra­tion on our app, you can use Deutsche Post as a ser­vice provider. The pro­ce­dure is called ​“Posti­dent”. You can per­son­al­ly vis­it one of the many post offices through­out Ger­many and ver­i­fy your iden­ti­ty there with your ID and a cov­er let­ter. You can find out which branch near you offers on-site ver­i­fi­ca­tion on the Deutsche Post web­site.

If you pre­fer to do it from the com­fort of your sofa, we also offer a legit­i­ma­cy check via video chat. The secu­ri­ty fea­tures and holo­grams of your ID doc­u­ment are scanned. The ser­vice provider for­wards the rel­e­vant con­tract data to Wat­ti­fy, as in the on-site iden­ti­ty check. If you don’t want to walk into a branch or chat into the cam­era, Wat­ti­fy pro­vides a third option for you:

The online ID func­tion with eID.

The method behind it is quite sim­ple. You only need two things: your ID card with acti­vat­ed eID func­tion and your smart­phone (with NFC func­tion) as a card read­er. You can use the online ID func­tion any­time and any­where. It saves you the has­sle of deal­ing with the author­i­ties and paper, and the coolest thing about it is that once you’ve acti­vat­ed it for reg­is­tra­tion with Wat­ti­fy, you can use it to iden­ti­fy your­self online again and again. It’s worth it to use the eID func­tion. Just fol­low these steps:

Acti­vate your eID
When you received your ID card, you received the acti­va­tion doc­u­ments and a per­son­al PIN. If you no longer have either of these at hand, you can use a gov­ern­ment ser­vice free of charge that will send you a new acti­va­tion code and PIN with a PIN reset let­ter. You can find the link here.

Down­load the Posti­dent App
You can find it for free in any major app store. You can use it to com­plete the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process.

Com­plete the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­ces
The iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process starts with a QR code or a process num­ber from Wat­ti­fy. Then you enter your eID PIN and hold your ID card to the NFC inter­face of your smart­phone. Done!

The entire process should take you less than 30 sec­onds. For com­plete secu­ri­ty in the KYC process, Wat­ti­fy has also pre­pared a ques­tion­naire for you as part of the onboard­ing process. Here, you’ll pro­vide answers about your pre­vi­ous finan­cial expe­ri­ence and invest­ment goals. This way, we fur­ther min­i­mize the risk for you and Wat­ti­fy and can tai­lor our approach to you indi­vid­u­al­ly.

From open­ing your account to mak­ing your first invest­ment in just a few steps. Down­load the app, ver­i­fy and you’re ready to go!